1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to rolling mills in which laying heads form hot rolled long products into helical ring formations that are deposited on and carried by cooling conveyors to reforming chambers where the rings are gathered into coils, and is concerned in particular with maximizing the density of such coils.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The laying heads of rolling mills are conventionally employed to form hot rolled long products into rings having the same diameter for all product sizes. As herein employed, the term “long products” means round bars and rods, and “size” refers to product diameters.
By way of a non-limiting example, a laying head will produce rings having a diameter of 1075 mm. For products ranging in size from about 5 to 16 mm, rings of this diameter are deposited into and distributed within the reforming chambers to produce reasonably dense and compact coils. However, when the laying heads process larger product sizes, e.g., ranging from 17 to 26 mm, rings with the same diameter tend to resist being satisfactorily distributed in the reforming chambers. The resulting coils thus tend to lack sufficient density, with a somewhat open and random ring distribution that contributes to coil instability.